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What Is Artsong?Usually a
short composition for solo voice with piano accompaniment, based on
a poetic text and composed in a fairly simple style designed to enhance
the siginificance of the text. The lied (art song)- differing from the
folk (or popular) song, which is usually unaccompanied, anonymously
composed, and transmitted by oral tradition- is the personal creation
of an individual composer aiming at artistic perfection. In its deceptive
simplicity, the lied conceals the artfulness with which its creator
fused the three elements of text, melody, and accompaniment into a unified
whole.
Profusion of lyrical poetry in Europe at the end of the eigteenth century lead to the flourishing of the lied. It requires greater freedom of expression and a need to reflect ones intimate sentiments in compositions that blend words and music. Another important contributing factor to lied's development was the growth of the middle class in which the women, instead of working, spent their time in pursuit of cultural activites, i.e., learning to play the piano (at that time found increasingly in private residences), singing, and buying the increased quantities of music diestributed by the new commercial entrepreneurs, the music publishers. In its most current forms, art song ranges from short and simple to rhapsodic. A song cycle can last an entire evening, or be as brief as five minutes. Freedom of expression is a key element to the definition of art song. And collaboration. Not only must the singer present the melody of any given composer, but the responsibility for setting the mood of the poem, commenting on the action, elaborating the vocalist's line through the anticipation or echo of a phrase, providing an interlude between stanzas, or concluding the song with an instrumental postlude rests with the accompaniment. Through the years, the significance of the piano accompaniment presented a problem to composers and critics concerned with the relative importance of words and music in the lied. Earlier writers indicated the interpretation of the text as the duty of the singer. By the late eigteenth century, however, the piano accompaniments began to share in the support of the vocal melody, sometimes through increased harmonic activities, other times through enrichment of the texture or embellishment of the melodic line.
Source:
Brody, Elaine and Fowkes, Robert. The German Lied and its Poetry. New
York:New York University Press, 1971.
ONLINE INFORMATION: Texts of Lieder, Art Song, and Other Vocal Works Thomas Hampson: I Hear America Singing
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